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Cultural competency

Teacher training designed to raise awareness of about how to capitalize on cultural diversity in instruction by using techniques to better connect with kids from different ethnic backgrounds.

What is the controversy?

Some teachers do not think special training is needed to teach children who are ethnically different. There is also debate about what training should focus on. Some training focuses more on recognizing ethnic differences, while other training is more about focused on reaching children living in poverty.

How does it work?

Teaching strategies: George Washington Community High School teacher Jessica Crane-Sims found that allowing students to work in groups benefitted them, especially those still learning English who could pair with bilingual students.Understanding students: George Sims, also a teacher at George Washington, found spending off-hours frequenting businesses and events in the neighborhood around the school helped him learn about his students' cultures.Training: IUPUI Pprofessor Monica Medina has groups of students in her multicultural education class study aspects of the neighborhood around a school, with the goal of creating a service project to benefit the community.

Source: Star report

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Third-year teacher Jared Allen's Pike High School students were cuffed and hooked to gauges for a biomedical science lesson on how body movements affect blood pressure. At the end of class, a pile of papers was due.

"Mr. Allen," a student said, "you're doing the most."

A puzzled Allen asked, what does that mean -- "the most?"

Of the 21 students in the room, nearly all were black and Hispanic. Allen is white.

The kids chuckled at his cluelessness. Then they explained: "The most" means he's asking too much.

Teen slang is one example of the cultural divide common in urban schools, where students increasingly belong to ethnic and racial minority groups and their teachers do not.

In the classroom, that divide -- which can be exacerbated by income levels and life experiences -- is an obstacle to building trust and understanding.

But it is an obstacle that some educators think can be overcome -- or at least reduced -- with specialized training that is being employed more frequently in the nation's schools and here in Indiana.

Making differences work in schools

"Cultural competency" training is designed to give teachers techniques and strategies that can help them not only reach minority students but also capitalize on cultural diversity in the classroom. At its core, cultural competency is about understanding differences and the role those differences play in how best to teach children.

For example, many high-achieving schools with large minority populations focus on achievement and visioning, or prompting the kids to imagine themselves succeeding by going to college and into desirable careers, according to Diana Daniels, executive director of the Indianapolis-based National Council on Educating Black Children.

By training teachers in those techniques, Daniels said, "you can teach a Caucasian to effectively teach African-American and Latino students in high-impact schools."

But within Daniels' optimistic declaration also lies the central controversy that has enveloped cultural competency: the idea that children of different backgrounds should be taught differently.

Some teachers bristle at the idea that they need training to teach kids who are different from them. To them, teaching is teaching. And children are children.

Even among those who favor training, there are vigorous debates about what it should look like. For example, some think training should be specific to the ethnic traditions of the kids who attend a particular school.

Others argue that to focus specifically on ethnic and racial differences is a mistake -- that it's more important for teachers to understand the effects of poverty.

Teacher population "whiter and whiter"

Two things, however, are indisputable: Socioeconomic and racial/ethnic achievement gaps exist in education, and the urban-school teachers struggling to close those gaps are increasingly unlike their students.

Consider the teaching force and student body at Indianapolis Public Schools' 48 elementary schools. In 2010, about 85 percent of the teachers were white, compared with 23 percent of the students. Ten years ago, white enrollment was 34 percent, a chunk of which has been replaced by a Latino population that has grown from 5 percent to 16 percent.

"We've seen the teacher population get whiter and whiter," said Pat Payne, who heads IPS' office of multicultural education. "Teachers of color are just not coming into the profession."

It's also difficult to ignore the economic gap. Eighty-one percent of IPS students are from families that are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which requires a family of four to have a total annual income of less than $42,000. The average teacher salary in IPS last year was $54,600.

Payne said the first step in training is to get teachers talking about cultural difference and their own perceptions and biases. It's not easy.

Survey sometimes finds denial, defensiveness among teachers

IPS uses a self-survey that categorizes teacher openness to diversity based on their answers. Many of them initially rate as being in denial or defensive about their perceptions, being overly critical of their own culture or minimizing differences in their classrooms.

With those results before them, real discussion can start about how to accept differences and adapt their thinking and behavior.

The other arm to IPS' approach is in instruction. For the first time this year, the district is requiring teachers to incorporate multicultural themes into lessons.

To help teachers adapt, the district created a 335-page curriculum guide with ideas on lessons in African-American history.

The guide, Payne said, is meant as a first step. A second guide with lessons in Latino history is planned next, although she said it would likely take a couple of years to develop.

More than 70 pages of the new guide build lessons around the life story of President Barack Obama and the election of the first black president. Payne said Obama's example is meant to show students from any minority group that they have the opportunity to achieve at high levels.

For teachers, training starting at colleges

The move toward greater cultural competency and awareness isn't just happening in urban schools or at the school district level. It's happening in colleges that train teachers.

Her class is held at IPS' George Washington Community High School, which has a diverse student population -- about 30 percent Hispanic and 20 percent black.

The college students spend some of their time tutoring children and assisting teachers inside a George Washington classroom.

The rest of the time is spent with Medina, with the college students discussing their experiences in the school, such as what did and didn't work when it came to breaking through barriers and earning trust.

Medina extends the training beyond the classroom. For a project, she has the students research the area around Washington with an eye toward opportunities for service projects that would help build the community.

Still, Medina is not wild about the term "cultural competency."

"You never become competent," she said. "It's always a process. The way you learn about it is by experiencing it."

Connecting outside classroom is key to building a relationship

The goal is to connect with the students on their terms -- outside school, in their community and at their activities.

George Sims, a George Washington teacher, follows that advice. A 2001 IUPUI graduate, he studied under Medina as an undergraduate.

Now Sims, who is white and grew up in Plainfield, tries to attend every "family night" at the school, eat in neighborhood restaurants and attend sports and other after-school events as much as possible.

"I try to create an atmosphere where they know I'm on their side," he said.

That extends to basic teaching tools, like homework. When he assigns homework, Sims makes sure to offer time after school for students who need help or a quiet place to work.

His wife, Jessica Crane-Sims, teaches language arts down the hall and has adopted new teaching strategies to match her students' learning styles.

"You have a tendency as a teacher to want to teach the way you were taught," said Crane-Sims, who attended Park Tudor and Plainfield schools.

At George Washington, for instance, her students often work together in groups. At first, her instinct was that group work would lead to cheating.

But in groups, she noticed, students tend to assemble in teams that play off their individual strengths and support each other. For example, students still learning English pair up with fluently bilingual students who help translate.

"It's not cheating," Crane-Sims said. "Culturally, in this school there is more learning when they work in groups."

Her students have the track record to prove it. Although Crane-Sims' students make up 2 percent of the student body, they account for 25 percent of the honor roll.

He showed he cared; kids returned the favor

Allen, the Pike High School science teacher, also frequently has students work in groups.

And he, too, is convinced that seeing kids outside class builds trust. He keeps a calendar of events that his students are involved in. He tries to attend at least one event for each student.

Immersion in the culture, he said, is the best training.

"I go to see how they act around their friends," Allen said. "You can see a new side of them in their comfort zones. . . . I know better what to expect from them in the classroom."

It goes both ways, he said.

"For them, they know I care for them," Allen said. "I am taking my time to cheer them on. They see me there."

At Crispus Attucks, a newly created IPS medical magnet middle school and high school, Allen finds himself in front of a classroom of students whose life experience couldn't have been much more different from his Mormon upbringing in Arizona.

He struggled to understand some of the students' disrespect, back talk, foul language and immaturity.

The best strategy was simply to find ways to demonstrate to the students that he really cared about their learning.

It worked. The students loosened up and, before long, were helping Allen.

A handful of students even started to build a glossary -- a glossary of their slang.